There's a lot of useless accessory crap for the Wii, but the BOSS controller case looked to buck the trend by addressing Nintendo's baffling lack of classic controller support for New Super Mario Bros Wii. Too bad it doesn't work.

Basically, what this big red thing does is slip over your Wiimote and, theoretically, makes it easier to grip and push those tiny buttons when playing a game with the Wiimote on its side. Kind of like the Classic Controller, with an accelerometer built in.

Unfortunately, Ars Technica says the additional bulk just makes things unwieldy. One needs big, beefy hands to use this thing properly, they report, and the additional heft in back—junk in the trunk, if you will—only makes things worse. And since the buttons on the case are just pressing down the original Wiimote buttons below, things got a tad unresponsive. Even at $10, the reviewer "breathed a sigh of relief" when he tore it off after an hour of play time.

It's too bad. That tiny directional pad and those tiny 1 and 2 buttons really cramp me up after an extended play session in the Mushroom Kingdom. [ars technica]